GIFT  or 


OUR 
IDENING 
THOUGHT 
OF  GOD 


OUR  WIDENING 
THOUGHT  o/GOD 

1 

"  YET  I  DOUBT  NOT  THROUGH 
THE  AGES  ONE  INCREASING 
PURPOSE  RUNS  <*»  AND  THE 
THOUGHTS  OF  MEN  ARE  WI- 
DENED WITH  THE  PROCESS 
OF  THE  SUNS."    Tennyson. 

By  CHARLES  SUMMER 
NASH,  President  of  the 
Pacific  Theological 
Seminary 

PAUL  ELDER  AND 
COMPANY-PUBLISHERS 
SAN  FRANCISCO 

Copyright,  1914 
By  Paul  Elder  and  Company- 
San  Francisco 


• 


«» 


TO  MY  STUDENTS 


By  Way  of  Introduction 


The  address  which  follows  was  pre- 
pared for  a  special  purpose  and  de- 
livered in  San  Francisco,  March  19, 
1914.  The  occasion  was  planned  in 
the  interest  of  expanding  views  of 
certain  main  Christian  truths,  con- 
cerning which  differences  of  opinion 
had  disturbed  the  public  mind.  No 
less  than  fourteen  hundred  persons 
testified  by  their  presence  their  alert 
interest  in  the  themes  presented.  This 
address  was  one  of  three,  the  other 
topics  being  "The  Changed  View  of 
the  Bible"  and  "Christ  from  the  Mod- 
ern Point  of  View."  The  addresses 
were  received  most  sympathetically 
and  evoked  many  expressions  of  ap- 
preciation and  gratitude.  They  were 
printed  in  response  to  an  urgent  call 
and  circulated  widely. 

This  address  is  now  published  in 
the  hope  that  it  may  reach  a  still 
larger  number  of  thoughtful  readers 
who  may  be  helped  through  confusiqn 
into  clearness  or  cheered  and  sustained 
in  their  religious  convictions.  The 
author  assumes  to  speak  for  no  one 
but  himself.  There  are,  however,  large 
and  enlarging  numbers  within  and 
without  the  churches  who  hold  the 
interpretations  here  offered  and  find 
life  deepened  and  enriched.  These 
are  not  final  conceptions.  Spiritual 
experience  will  be  granted  yet  wider 
horizons  and  profounder  realities  in 
the  knowledge  of  God.  Life  is  infinite 
and  "the  rapture  of  the  forward  view" 
is  endless. 


308343 


OUR  WIDENING 
THOUGHT  o/GOD 


W 


E  ARE  here  tonight  in 
no  spirit  of  controversy 
or  conceit.  We  would 
say  no  word  that  would 
sting  or  hurt  those  who 
may  differ  with  us.  We 
would  not  disparage  the  past.  We  are 
children  of  our  fathers.  They  have 
lifted  us  to  our  high  estate.  If  we 
stand  upon  their  shoulders,  it  is  what 
they  desired  and  trained  us  to  do.  We 
should  be  sadly  false  to  them  if  we 
had  failed  to  make  the  advance  for 
which  they  prepared  and  charged  us. 
We  are,  moreover,  the  children  of 
those  who  counted  religion  the  su- 
preme interest  and  duty  of  life.  If 
they  expected  the  new  day  to  be  fuller 
of  light — and  they  certainly  did  ex- 
pect it — it  was  the  light  of  God  upon 
the  human  spirit  that  they  meant.  It 
is  our  duty  to  them  as  well  as  to  God, 
in  grateful  memory  of  all  they  knew 
and  taught  us,  to  live  and  learn  be- 
yond them.  We  have  reverenced  and 
obeyed  them  by  going  forward.  In 
this  generation  mankind  has  made  be- 
wildering strides  and  is  still  marching 
on  in  seven-league  boots.  No  depart- 
ment of  human  thought  and  life  is  at 
a  standstill.  And  in  the  universal  pro- 
cess, wheresoever  religion  has  igno- 
rantly  or  timidly  or  stubbornly  halted 
in  its  tracks,  there  it  has  lost  its  op- 
portunity and  declined  its  duty.  As 


Our  Widening  Thought  of  God 

•  i 


a  general  truth,  it  has  not  halted  nor 
held  back.  Religion  is  a  conserving 
and  steadying  force  in  human  life. 
In  these  marvelous  new  days,  when 
men  are  so  intoxicated  with  the  wine 
of  life,  religion  should  not  lose  its 
poise.  Advance  it  must  make,  afraid 
of  nothing,  appropriating  and  inter- 
preting all  truth,  adapting  itself  to  all 
conditions,  maintaining  its  control  of 
human  thought  and  action.  It  must 
think  and  speak  in  the  language  of  the 
day,  or  men  will  cease  to  understand 
and  then  will  cease  to  listen.  And 
these  days  in  which  we  live  are  so 
rapid  that  religion  finds  it  hard  to 
keep  its  eternal  values  intelligible  to 
swiftly  changing  thought  and  applied 
to  human  need.  But  its  effort  to  ad- 
vance without  loss  and  hurt  is  far 
more  valiant  and  successful  than 
many  suppose.  Religious  truth  is 
roomy  and  spacious;  there  are  cozy 
corners  for  those  who  are  content 
with  what  they  have,  and  far  horizons 
for  those  who  are  off  and  away,  eager 
and  not  content.  Long  advance  in 
religious  thought  and  experience  has 
been  made  in  the  last  seventy-five 
years.  It  should  not  be  counted 
strange.  The  greatest  changes  that 
have  ever  occurred  in  human  thought 
and  knowledge  and  in  their  applica- 
tion to  living  conditions  have  come 
since  1850.  And  the  men  who  have 
been  thinking  out  religious  truth  and 
applying  it  to  life  are  the  same  men 
who  have  lived  through  the  wondrous 
changes  in  science  and  philosophy 


Our  Widening  Thought  of  God 


and  education  and  economics  and 
morals  and  social  service.  And  men 
must  unify  their  thinking;  not  long 
can  they  keep  religion  in  a  separate 
compartment.  All  truth  is  one,  and 
religion  must  be  at  home  everywhere. 

I. 

God  is  the  final  reality;  beyond 
Him  human  thought  can  not  go;  short 
of  Him  it  can  not  rest.  Thought  about 
God  is  thought  in  its  farthest  reach. 
Experience  of  God  is  the  deepest  need 
and  desire  of  man;  consciousness  of 
it  his  joy  and  strength,  his  transform- 
ing power.  It  follows  that  a  change 
in  our  conception  of  God  can  be  noth- 
ing less  than  a  most  profound  and 
vital  change.  Such  a  change  has 
passed  and  is  passing  over  our  Chris- 
tian thought,  surpassing  all  the  more 
superficial,  yet  astounding  changes  of 
our  time.  This  change  may  be  char- 
acterized as  follows: 

In  method  it  is  an  exchange  of 
the  intellectual  for  the  experimental, 
of  elaborate  interpretation  for  simple 
statement  of  fact  and  reality.  Greek 
philosophy  "took  a  simple  faith  and 
left  an  elaborate  system  of  belief.  It 
added  to  the  bulk  of  doctrine,  but  not 
to  its  vitality  or  working  vigor."* 
Metaphysical  inquiry  and  discussion 
took  the  place  of  tne  experience  of 
the  heart.  The  way  unto  God  and  the 
life  in  God  became  too  largely  intel- 
lectual assent  to  manifold  doctrine. 

1.  Clarke—  ••  What  Shall  We  Think  of  Christianity?"  p.  71. 


a 


Our  Widening  Thought  of  God 

I  I 

Elaborate  interpretations  were  sub- 
stituted for  the  heart  of  the  truth. 
Then  these  elaborations  were  fixed 
in  formal  and  authoritative  creeds. 
"The  Church  went  on  to  build  the 
doctrine  into  a  scholastic  system.  The 
system  has  grown,  until  the  head  of 
tne  organization  stands  as  the  infal- 
lible teacher."! 

Christian  truth  has  come  down  to 
us  thus  elaborated  and  formalized. 
But  men  have  always  been  thinking 
for  themselves  and  no  official  creed 
has  been  final.  The  cry  of  the  heart 
for  truth  and  power  could  not  be 
stifled,  and  the  search  has  been  con- 
tinuous for  the  real  and  simple  truth 
beneath  the  burdensome  and  power- 
less forms.  The  real  truth  has  re- 
mained, however  overlaid.  Today 
more  than  ever  men  insist  upon  find- 
ing it  and  rejoicing  in  it  as  the  es- 
sential thing.  It  has  recently  been 
said,  "The  permanent  element  in  the 
doctrine  (any  doctrine)  consists  in 
the  declaration  of  the  great  experi- 
mental truths;  the  changing  and  pass- 
ing element  consists  in  the  various  in- 
terpretations of  those  truths,  made 
from  time  to  time  in  human  thought. 
We  need  to  be  called  back  to  the 
realities,  where  the  power  dwells."2 
As  fast,  brethren,  as  we  recognize  this 
difference  between  the  central  reality 
and  the  various  interpretations,  be- 
tween essentials  and  non-essentials, 
we  shall  cease  to  strive  over  interpre- 

1.  Clarke- "What  Shall  We  Think  of  Chri.tianity?"  p.  72.  73. 

2.  CUrke—"  What  Shall  We  Think  of  Christianity?"    p.  92. 


Our  Widening  Thought  of  God 


tations  and  shall  welcome  one  another 
"back  to  the  realities,  where  the  power 
dwells." 

.  It  is  true  at  this  moment  that  men 
are  tired  of  insistent  discussions  of 
non-essentials  and  are  seeking  a  vital 
experience  of  the  simple  heart  of 
truth.  They  are  seeking  God  less  by 
the  hard  labor  of  the  mind  than 
through  moral  sympathy,  through  the 
trust  and  love  of  the  heart.  We  are 
incniiring  after  God,  not  of  philosophy, 
but  of  Jesus  Christ,  His  Son,  our 
Brother.  We  are  listening  to  His 
words,  "Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart 
for  they  shall  see  God;"  and,  "He  that 
hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father." 

II. 

Beholding  God  in  and  through 
Jesus  Christ,  we  are  surer  than  ever 
that  we  have  found  Him  to  be  a  Per- 
son. In  the  Man  of  Nazareth  was  a 
fulness  of  life  whose  measure  we  can 
not  take.  Before  His  clear  and  guile- 
less consciousness  of  communion  with 
the  personal  God  we  stand  in  awe. 
The  religion  which  He  taught  is  noth- 
ing else  than  such  communion.  The 
life  into  which  He  restores  men  is 
the  same  experience  of  personal  com- 
munion with  God.  For  nearly  two 
millenniums  Christians  have  been 
repeating  the  mysterious  experience 
of  divine  fellowship,  of  exchanging 
thought  and  feeling  with  an  infinite 
Friend.  We  have  not  lost  His  person- 
ality in  His  infinity.  In  Him  all  the 


Our  Widening  Thought  of  God 


elements  of  true  personality  are  raised 
to  perfection.  Lacking  all  incomplete- 
ness and  limitation,  He  is  the  self- 
existent,  self-conscious  and  self-direct- 
ing Person.  We  may  or  may  not  think 
Him  out  in  philosophical  terms,  or 
present  Him  in  a  creed.  The  vital 
thing  is  that  we  find  and  recognize 
Him  and  share  the  fulness  of  His  life. 
Though  we  never  can  compass 
His  being,  we  have  a  wealth  of  vital 
experience  too  wonderful  to  be  sup- 
pressed. Hence  the  historic  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity.  This  was  not  an  effort 
of  sheer  metaphysics;  it  was  an  earn- 
est attempt  to  formulate  an  experience 
of  the  personal  God  too  complex  for 
simple  definition.  The  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  has  persisted  and  will  persist. 
The'  permanent  element  in  it  is  "the 
declaration  of  the  great  experimental 
truths;"  the  voluminous,  labored  in- 
terpretations are  good  for  those  who 
find  them  helpful.  Believing  souls 
recognized  in  Jesus  "the  fulness  of 
the  Godhead  bodily,"  God  incarnate, 
G9d  manifest  in  humanity.  Through 
Him  they  apprehended  God  Himself, 
whom  Jesus  called  Father,  the  final 
Reality,  the  self-existent  One,  who  so 
loved  as  to  reveal  Himself  to  redeem 
His  children.  Through  Christ,  again, 
they  became  aware  of  God  dwelling  in 
their  hearts  in  a  ministry  of  power, 
and  they  called  him  the  Holy  Spirit. 
These  three  seemed  all  so  real  and  so 
divine  as  often  to  be  held  separate  and 
equal  while  yet  they  blended  into  the 
single  conception  of  the  infinite  God. 


Our  Widening  Thought  of  God 


It  has  been  difficult  to  keep  the  unity 
of  God.  There  are  three  persons  in 
one  God,  said  the  ancient  thinkers. 
Popular  faith  and  W9rship  have  often 
had  three  gods,  losing  the  unity  in 
showing  full  reverence  to  each.  Mod- 
ern thought  is  now  clearing  and  es- 
tablishing the  unity.  The  three  are 
persons  only  in  an  ancient  sense,  not 
in  the  modern  meaning  of  separate 
personalities.  The  one  God  holds  all 
the  relations  there  are  with  His  cre- 
ated universe.  In  every  experience  it 
is  God  Himself  we  meet,  not  S9me  rep- 
resentative of  God.  "The  universe  is 
one,"  says  the  thinker  quoted  above, 
"and  God  is  one.  One  God,  one  mind, 
one  will — this  is  the  only  form  in 
which  any  belief  in  God  whatever  is 
possible  in  the  world  as  we  know  it 
now.  God  Himself  is  the 

Father,  God  Himself  is  the  divine  in 
Jesus  Christ,  and  God  Himself  is  the 
Holy  Spirit."  The  writer  may  well 
add,  and  we  adopt  his  words,  'There 
is  not  less  divine  indwelling  than  the 
ancient  doctrine  affirmed,  but  more, 
but  it  is  the  indwelling  of  God.  'I 
will  dwell  in  them'  (2  Cor.  6:16)  is 
a  true  word  without  diminution."!  We 
shall  keep  the  terms  and  figures  of 
the  ancient  doctrine  of  the  Trinity. 
Our  interpretations  will  differ,  but 
that  is  not  essential.  Some  will 
reduce  the  terms  to  mere  modes  of 
three-fold  manifestation  of  the  one 
God.  Others  will  hold  the  doctrine  in 
a  different  sphere,  as  the  worthiest 

1.  Clarke-" Christian  Doctrine  of  God."  p.  237,  246. 


Our  Widening  Thought  of  God 


effort  to  express  the  limitless  wealth 
of  our  experience  of  the  infinite  God. 
Beneath  all  varieties  of  interpretation 
we  dwell  together  as  brethren  in  the 
one  God,  our  Father. 

III. 

Another  change  which  has  passed 
over  our  religious  thinking  is  a  change 
from  legal,  formal  and  institutional  to 
personal  conceptions.  We  used  to 
think  of  God  as  monarch,  wielding  the 
sceptre  and  jealous  for  His  throne. 
We  thought  of  Him  as  King  over  a 
kingdom  of  sheer  power,  triumphing 
over  enemies,  reducing  all  creatures 
to  subjection,  ruling  in  majesty  and 
might.  We  thought  of  Him  as  Judge 
dispensing  severe  justice  over  crea- 
tures of  wrath,  condemning  and  pun- 
ishing, inflicting  endless  and  hopeless 
penalties,  as  the  only  way  to  sustain 
His  omnipotent  government.  *  We  are 
learning  at  last,  really  learning  and 
understanding,  that  God  is  our  Father, 
and  that  we  are  not  subjugated  ene- 
mies nor  condemned  culprits,  but 
children  beloved  and  cherished.  Our 
Father  is  indeed  Lord  of  all,  clothed 
with  infinite  majesty.  To  His  lord- 
ship we  must  forever  answer.  But  as 
we  find  God  in  Christ,  the  greatest 
truth  regained— most  true  of  Him  and 
us,  supreme  over  all  other  truths,  de- 
termining all  His  relations  with  us — 
is  His  Fatherhood  and  our  sonship. 
This  truth  is  now  radiant  and  surpass- 
ing. The  filial  relation  is  chief  of  all. 


8 


Our  Widening  Thought  of  God 


"Our  Father"  is  the  address  to  be  for- 
ever on  our  lips.  By  that  must  all 
truth  and  duty  be  tested  and  ex- 
plained. Our  days  should  be  those  of 
growing  children,  responsive  to  our 
Father's  love,  unfolding  in  His  light, 
approaching  His  moral  perfection, 
working  with  Him  and  with  one  an- 
other. The  extent  and  significance  of 
this  change  from  the  institutional  to 
the  personal  we  may  be  slow  to  ap- 
preciate; but  no  sooner  do  we  catch 
its  first  meanings  than  we  know  our- 
selves delivered  into  the  "liberty  of 
the  glory  of  the  children  of  God." 

What  is  the  character  of  God? 
is  the  deepest  question  of  the  ages. 
Our  reply  now  is  this: — God  is  what 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  said  He  was,  what 
Jesus  Himself  was.  He  is  like  Christ. 
There  is  nothing  higher  to  be  said. 
Our  thought  can  not  reach  beyond 
the  perfect  character  and  divine 
consciousness  of  Jesus.  Seeing  the 
Father  in  Him  "sufliceth  us."  How 
profound  and  complete  it  is,  yet  how 
simple!  It  is  not  metaphysical  analy- 
sis, it  is  spiritual  vision.  It  finds  the 
inmost  truth  about  the  divine  nature, 
because  it  finds  God  Himself.  God  is 
in  Christ,  and  he  who  accepts  Christ 
by  faith  receives  God  and  knows  Him 
by  the  kinship  of  moral  life  and  the 
answer  of  love.  Much  remains  to 
learn  of  God,  but  there  is  no  different 
God  to  replace  Him  whom  we  have 
found  in  and  through  Jesus.  We  have 
begun  to  live  in  the  Living  One.  Thus 
have  Christians  always  found  God 


Our  Widening  Thought  of  God 


through  Christ  the  Way,  but  have  been 
confused  and  burdened  by  the  elabo- 
rate creeds  enforced  by  faulty  leaders 
who  could  not  believe  that  it  was 
enough  to  see  God  in  Christ.  The  re- 
turn to  this  simplicity  of  faith  and 
vision  is  a  modern  renewal  of  life  at 
its  very  source. 

Learning  of  Jesus  Christ,  our 
modern  emphasis  is  now  resting  upon 
God's  moral  perfection  and  His  love. 
God  is  a  holy  being,  and  God  is  love, 
we  are  chiefly  saying.  Those  are  the 
truths  we  most  need  to  know  of  Him. 
Those  are  the  most  radiant  and  mighty 
qualities  in  Jesus.  Those  are  the  truths 
bearing  most  commandingly  upon  our 
duty  and  most  blessedly  upon  our 
welfare.  His  truth,  His  wisdom,  His 
justice,  His  power, — all  His  attributes 
we  revere.  "But  the  central  element 
in  the  doctrine  of  God  is  the  moral 
and  religious.  Not  the  divine  power, 
but  the  divine  character  is  at  the 
front.  Not  the  philosophy  of  His  na- 
ture, but  the  love  and  righteousness  of 
God  is  the  primary  fact  in  the  doc- 
trine."! There  is  an  extraordinarv 
moral  reaction  abroad  at  the  present 
time.  Men  feel  the  call  to  rectitude 
and  perfection.  Salvation  is  seen  to 
be  a  moral  process,  however  miracu- 
lously it  may  begin  in  renewal  and 
conversion.  It  is  deeply  felt  that 
God  will  have  nothing  less  from  men 
than  the  pursuit  and  attainment  of 
holy  character.  Christian  living  is  not 
so  much  church  membership  or  cere- 

1.  CUrke-T.hriitian  Doctrine  of  Cod."  p.  53. 


10 


Our  Widening  Thought  of  God 


monial  worship  as  it  is  likeness  to 
Christ  in  character  and  service.  The 
sincere  soul  acknowledges  that  all 
his  actions  must  be  clean  and  right, 
out  of  a  character  whose  spirit  and 
substance  are  holy  as  God  is  holy. 
Never  an  age  so  complex  and  con- 
fused; nor  ever  an  age  when  men  of 
sincere  and  intelligent  purpose  bowed 
so  surely  to  the  moral  imperative.  We 
must  work  out  our  own  salvation  till 
we  are  perfect  as  pur  heavenly  Father 
is  perfect.  The  victory  of  holy  char- 
acter must  be  won. 

It   can   be   won,   for   love   is   su- 

?reme.  Not  alone  by  resident  human 
orces  must  our  salvation  be  worked 
out,  for  God  worketh  His  own  will  in 
us.  The  truest  and  greatest  word 
about  the  nature  of  God  is  that  He  is 
love.  Whatever  else  our  Father  is, 
love  is  His  inmost  being,  His  all-per- 
vading quality.  However  He  may  ap- 
pear to  act  toward  His  children  at  anv 
time,  His  love  is  always  perfect  and 
supreme.  Else  were  He  not  our  Fa- 
ther. Love  is  not  mere  good  nature, 
that  men  should  do  all  manner  of  evil 
with  impunity.  But  the  Father's  love 
is  mightier  than  the  waywardness,  the 
resistance,  the  weakness  and  the  guilt 
of  His  wilful  children.  He  will  help 
them  through,  by  whatever  devious 
and  painful  ways,  unto  perfection  and 
filial  love,  if  they  are  willing;  nay 
more,  will  not  His  love  prevail  to 
make  them  willing  and  bring  them 
home?  Shall  sovereign  and  exhaust- 
less  love  fail? 


11 


Our  Widening  Thought  of  God 


So  stands  men's  hope  today,  be- 
lieving that  infinite  love  will  make  the 
victory  of  holy  character  complete 
and  universal,  and  that  "good  shall 
fall  at  last,  far  off,  at  last  to  all." 

IV. 

Another  far-reaching  change  in 
our  conception  has  been  that  which  is 
represented  in  the  modern  doctrine 
of  the  immanence  of  God.  His  trans- 
cendence has  always  been  a  great  ar- 
ticle of  our  faith.  It  means  that  God 
is  greater  than  all  that  He  has  created 
and  independent  of  it.  It  was  often 
held  to  mean  that  God  was  absent 
from  the  world — an  "absentee  God." 
He  kept  the  world  running  by  resi- 
dent forces.  Its  regular  processes 
went  on  without  His  immediate  action. 
Occasionally  He  broke  in  by  what  is 
called  a  miracle,  but  for  the  most  part 
He  remained  aloof,  He  governed  from 
without. 

We  have  always  had,  it  is  true, 
the  precious  truth  of  the  divine  omni- 
presence. We  have  believed  God  pres- 
ent everywhere.  He  could  act  in- 
stantly at  any  point  or  at  all  points. 
Men  could  reach  Him  with  their  praise 
and  prayer,  and  were  the  objects  of 
His  unfailing  care.  Thus  have  we 
brought  near  the  infinite  and  trans- 
cendent God.  We  have  rejoiced  in 
the  rich  Scriptures  which  set  forth 
His  presence  with  men,  His  provi- 
dence, His  spiritual  indwelling,  His 


12 


Our  Widening  Thought  of  God 


immediate  transforming  influence — in 
a  word,  His  communion  with  His  chil- 
dren. 

In  this  truth  of  the  divine  pres- 
ence we  have  reality  and  complete 
vital  values.  We  might  use  the  term 
omnipresence  for  the  recent  great  ex- 

Eansion  of  our  thought  and  faith.  We 
ave,  however,  taken  the  term  imma- 
nence instead.  We  have  made  a  new 
discovery  of  God's  vital  relation  to 
His  universe.  We  have  caught  new 
meanings  in  the  old  truth  that  the 
transcendent  God,  who  surpasses  all, 
dwells  in  all.  We  have  discerned  that 
His  real  presence  everywhere  is  a  con- 
tinuously creative  presence.  The  pro- 
cesses of  life  do  really  work  by  resi- 
dent forces,  but  those  forces  are  not 
merely  set  in  motion  by  the  Creator, 
they  are  the  continual  action  of  the 
indwelling  Spirit.  He  creates  and  sus- 
tains and  governs,  not  from  without, 
but  from  within.  Modern  philosophic 
thought  has  reached  this  revelation, 
and  Christian  thought  finds  its  Scrip- 
tures rising  to  the  height  of  the  great 
argument.  The  late  Professor  Bowne 
has  put  it  in  this  way:  "In  the  new 
conception  the  supernatural  is  nothing 
foreign  to  nature  and  making  occa- 
sional raids  into  nature  in  order  to  re- 
veal itself;  but,  so  far  as  nature  is 
concerned  the  supernatural  is  the  ever 
present  ground  and  administrator  of 
nature;  and  nature  is  simply  the  form 
under  which  the  Supreme  Reason  and 
Will  manifest  themselves.  This  is  the 
doctrine  of  the  divine  immanence  to 


13 


Our  Widening  Thought  of  God 


which  philosophy  is  coming  in  its 
search  after  the  cosmic  causality.  We 
come  down — to  a  Living  Will  which 
worketh  hitherto  and  worketh  ever- 
more. The  commonest  event, 
say  the  fall  of  a  leaf,  is  as  supernatural 
in  its  causation  as  any  miracle  would 
be;  for  in  both  alike  God  would  be 
equally  implicated."1  "The  instructed 
theist,  then,"  he  adds,  "sets  aside  the 
self-running  nature  and  the  absentee 
God.  For  him  God  is  the 
ever  present  agent  in  the  ongoing  of 
the  world,  and  nature  is  but  the  form 
and  product  of  His  ceaseless  activ- 
ity."1 The  same  writer  says  again: 
"The  presence  of  God  in  nature  does 
not  mean  that  God  is  here  and  there 
in  the  world  performing  miracles,  but 
that  the  whole  cosmic  movement  de- 
pends constantly  upon  the  divine  will 
and  is  an  expression  of  the  divine 
purpose.  In  like  manner  the  presence 
of  God  in  history  does  not  mean  ex- 
clusively, or  mainly,  that  God  is  work- 
ing signs  and  wonders  upon  occasion, 
but  rather  that  God  is  carrying  on 
the  great  historical  movement  and 
working  His  will  therein."2 

This  is  the  Christian  view  of  the 
relations  of  God  to  His  universe.  "Of 
Him  and  through  Him  and  unto  Him 
are  all  things."  In  the  divine  Son  "all 
things  hold  together."  "Whither  shall 
I  go  from  Thy  Spirit?  Or  whither 
shall  I  flee  from  Thy  presence?"  "He 
that  dwelleth  in  the  secret  place  of 

1.  Bowne-"Immanence  of  God."  p.  17,  24. 

2.  Bowne— "Immanence  of  God."  p.  43. 


14 


Our  Widening  Thought  of  God 


the  Most  High  shall  abide  under  the 
shadow  of  the  Almighty."  "Thus  saith 
the  high  and  lofty  One  that  inhabiteth 
eternity,  whose  name  is  Holy;  I  dwell 
in  the  high  and  holy  place,  with  him 
also  that  is  of  a  contrite  and  humble 
spirit."  Not  a  sparrow  "shall  fall  on 
the  ground  without  your  Father,"  and 
"the  very  hairs  of  your  head  are  all 
numbered."  "The  God  that  made  the 
world,  and  all  things  therein,  giveth 
to  all  life  and  breath  and  all  things; 
He  is  not  far  from  each  one  of  us; 
for  in  Him  we  live,  and  move,  and 
have  our  being."  The  deepest  spirit 
and  drift  of  the  Scriptures  carries  this 
truth  of  the  most  intimate  indwelling 
and  creative  contact  of  God  in  nature 
and  in  man.  It  can  not  be  overstated. 
God  is  forever  uttering  and  imparting 
Himself.  His  love  is  incessantly  out- 
poured. His  children  may  be  "filled 
unto  all  the  fulness  of  God." 

In  this  truth  of  the  immanent  God 
an  immense  change  has  passed  over 
our  religious  thinking  and  our  Chris- 
tian living.  Two  or  three  implications 
call  for  special  mention.  In  the  first 
place,  the  orderly  processes  of  nature 
and  human  nature  have  taken  the  evi- 
dential place  formerly  held  by  mir- 
acles. We  need  not  disbelieve  in 
miracles.  God  is  still  omnipotent,  able 
to  operate  in  startling  ways  if  need 
be,  to  bring  in  a  higher  law  to  check 
the  operation  of  a  lower — for  that  is 
what  miracles  are  now  seen  to  mean. 
But  the  "isolated  wonder"  is  no  longer 
necessary  to  manifest  God's  presence 


15 


Our  Widening  Thought  of  God 


and  display  His  power.  Every  living 
blade  of  grass  is  proof  of  His  inwork- 
ing  energy;  so  is  "each  glad,  obedient 
planet"  that  "sings  through  the  web 
that  time  is  weaving;"  so  is  the  mar- 
velous pageant  of  the  seasons,  the 
birth  of  children,  the  love  of  mothers, 
the  awakening  of  Helen  Keller  through 
the  infinite  ministry  of  love;  so  is 
every  open  eye  and  ~vocal  tongue  and 
every  vital  breath.  Evolution  is  still 
a  fearsome  word  to  many  devout 
souls,  but  it  has  revolutionized  our 
thinking.  Its  truth  does  not  banish 
God,  but  intensifies  the  light  and 
power  of  His  presence.  It  is  but  a 
study  in  the  method  of  God's  opera- 
tion in  nature  and  man. 

"A  fire-mist  and  a  planet, 

A  crystal  and  a  cell, 
A  jelly-fish  and  a  saurian, 

And   caves   where   the   cave   men 

dwell; 
Then  a  sense  of  law  and  beauty, 

And  a  face  turned  from  the  clod; 
Some  call  it  evolution, 

And   others   call   it  God." 

It  is  evolution,  and  it  is  God.  The 
whole  ageless  process  is  the  creative 
work  of  the  Eternal,  who,  moment  by 
moment,  everywhere,  worketh  hither- 
to and  forevermore. 

Then  the  words  "natural"  and 
"supernatural"  may  be  cleared  of  con- 
fusion. You  can  not  draw  a  distinct 
line  through  God's  creation  and  call 
the  lower  part  natural  and  the  higher 


16 


Our  Widening  Thought  of  God 


part  supernatural.  The  only  place  to 
draw  the  line  is  between  the  whole 
created  universe  on  the  one  hand  and 
God  on  the  other.  The  created  uni- 
verse is  the  natural,  and  God  is  the 
supernatural.  Nor  are  these  anywhere 
separate,  the  one  from  the  other.  They 
dwell  together,  each  in  the  other,  in 
an  intimacy  deep  beyond  our  compre- 
hension. 

"Earth's  crammed  with  heaven, 
And    every   common    bush    afire   with 
God." 

Nor  do  the  words  "sacred"  and 
"profane"  or  "secular"  express  valid 
distinctions.  Nothing  in  the  natural 
order  is  unhallowed,  for  all  is  filled 
with  God  and  is  the  expression  of  His 
life.  Doubtless  we  erring  children 
profane  the  sacred  works  of  our 
Father,  debasing  even  our  own  spirits 
which  are  the  highest  of  God's  crea- 
tions. Doubtless,  too,  it  is  necessary 
for  us  to  set  apart  some  things  to 
moral  and  religious  uses — days  of 
rest  and  worship,  a  Lenten  season, 
churches,  cathedrals,  abbeys,  rituals, 
a  peace  palace,  homes,  hospitals,  God's 
acre.  But  we  need  to  hold  all  things 
as  of  God  and  sacred,  save  as  touched 
by  moral  evil. 

There  are  certain  special  work- 
ings of  these  changed  emphases  and 
modern  conceptions  which  marvel- 
ously  enrich  our  religious  experience. 
We  are  becoming  familiar  with  the 
divine  order  of  life  and  serenely  con- 


17 


Our  Widening  Thought  of  God 


fident  of  our  secure  place  therein. 
"Not  chiefly  in  flashes  of  God,  but  in 
a  steady  world,  is  the  divine  reality 
revealed."  We  learn  to  rest  with  set- 
tled confidence  in  the  steady  world 
filled  with  the  faithful  God.  There 
grows  within  us  the  sensitive  realiza- 
tion of  that  inner  Presence.  Every 
blossom  is  opened  by  His  hand. 
Every  tree  stands  in  His  strength. 
Every  bird  sings  in  the  Father's  joy. 
On  tne  hills  or  by  the  sea,  we  walk 
in  His  mystic  presence,  where  "In 
His  temple  everything  saith  'Glory'!' 

V. 

We  rise,  then,  to  the  higher  levels 
of  the  truth.  Chiefly  does  God  dwell 
in  the  spiritual  order  of  which  all  in- 
telligent beings  are  a  part.  In  Him 
we  have  our  being.  In  higher  and 
richer  volume  than  in  a  tree  does  God, 
who*  is  a  spirit,  dwell  in  His  children. 
Our  being  is  of  the  same  kind  as  God's 
being,  since  we  are  His  offspring.  We 
used  to  believe — just  ^yesterday — that 
human  nature  and  divine  nature  were 
essentially  unlike  and  could  not  inter- 
penetrate save  in  the  one  Person, 
Christ  Jesus,  in  some  miraculous 
union.  We  are  now  convinced  that 
the  Father  and  His  children  are  alike. 
There  are  not  two  diverse  kinds  of 
spirit.  The  human  is  capable  of  re- 
ceiving and  expressing  the  divine.  In 
the  one  matchless  Person  the  expres- 
sion was  unhindered  and  perfect.  But 
all  communion  with  God  is  an  incar- 


18 


Our  Widening  Thought  of  God 


nation,  and  all  true  living  is,  so  far  as 
it  goes,  a  manifestation  of  the  incar- 
nate God.  The  intimacy  of  an  obe- 
dient and  visional  soul  with  the  in- 
dwelling Spirit  of  God  is  too  profound 
and  pervasive  to  be  understood  per- 
fectly. We  strain  our  speech  to  ut- 
ter it. 

"Closer  is  He  than  breathing, 
And  nearer  than  hands  and  feet." 

"He  is  not  so  far  away  as  even  to 
be  near."  Jesus  prayed,  "Even  as 
Thou,  Father,  art  in  me,  and  I  in 
Thee,  that  they  also  may  be  in  us." 
In  this  mystery  shall  we  riot  somewhat 
amend  the  language  of  our  spiritual 
experience?  God  does  not  come;  He 
is  with  us.  He  does  not  withdraw, 
else  we  should  instantly  die.  We  do 
not  go  here  or  there  to  find  Him.  We 
do  not  leave  Him  when  we  depart. 
Prayer  should  not  be  an  agony  of 
pleading  to  move  a  reluctant  God; 
rather,  the  trustful  inquiry  of  a  child 
after  the  Father's  will,  and  a  serene 
infilling  with  the  Father's  power.  Do- 
ing the  will  of  God  is  no  grudging 
obedience  to  arbitrary  commands,  no 
mere  fulfillment  of  written  orders. 
The  will  of  God  is  His  infinite  energy 
working  in  perfect  love  toward  His 
perfect  ends.  And  doing  His  will 
is  accepting  our  Father's  purposes 
and  throwing  all  our  kindled  force 
into  the  onward  sweep  of  His  power. 
Living  thus  in  Him  and  He  in  us. 
why  not  with  a  sound  mind  in  a 
sound  body,  with  abounding  energy 


19 


Our  Widening  Thought  of  God 


and  contagious  love?  Surely  so,  in 
so  far  as  we  can  take  the  vital  cur- 
rents of  the  indwelling  God.  Such 
living  is  "under  the  aspect  of  eter- 
nity." It  makes  "our  noisy  years  seem 
moments  in  the  being  of  the  eternal 
silence."  It  believes  that  sovereign 
love  can  not  be  defeated.  The  holv 
city  of  God  can  be  brought  down  out 
of  lieaven  and  built,  all  glorious  with 
redeemed  humanity,  here  on  earth. 
The  materials  for  it  are  here,  in  the 
divine  nature  of  God's  children  per- 
vaded with  the  Father's  redeeming 
presence,  in  the  awakening  of  the  chil- 
dren to  their  heavenly  inheritance  and 
the  victorious  power  within  and 
among  them.  Here,  too,  is  founded 
our  hope  of  personal  and  social  im- 
mortality. When  Christ,  who  is  our 
life,  shall  appear,  then  shall  we  appear 
with  Him  in  glory.  Children  created 
in  the  image  of  God,  redeemed  by  His 
incarnate  love,  sustained  by  His  in- 
flowing and  abiding  presence,  have 
no  other  destiny  than  their  Father's 
home.  The  world  today  believes,  as 
it  never  knew  enough  to  believe  be- 
fore, the  Father's  word  through  Jesus, 
"I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you, 
*  and  will  receive  you  unto 
Myself." 

The  widening  thought  of  God  has 
brought  a  fulness  of  life  unknown  to 
any  preceding  age.  "The  tabernacle 
of  God  is  with  men  *  and  God 

Himself  is  with  them.  *  *  *  And 
He  that  sitteth  on  the  throne  saith,  Be- 
hold, I  make  all  things  new." 


20 


HERE  ENDS  OUR  WIDENING  THOUGHT  OF 
GOD,  BEING  AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  BY 
CHARLES  SUMNER  NASH.  PUBLISHED  IN 
BOOK  FORM  BY  PAUL  ELDER  &  COMPANY, 
AND  SEEN  THROUGH  THEIR  TOMOYE  PRESS 
BY  JOHN  SWART  IN  THE  CITY  OF  SAN  FRAN- 
CISCO, DURING  THE  MONTH  OF  NOVEMBER, 
NINETEEN  HUNDRED  AND  FOURTEEN. 


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